Photo credit: Raymond Flotat

When an artist becomes successful, many people believe they now have a platform to speak out on certain issues that are going on. Some artists have become known to do this John Legend, J. Cole among many others. Amanda Palmer is one of these artists that will speak out, as can be seen from her 2013 TED talk “The Art of Asking” which caused some controversy and received mixed reactions.

According to BILLBOARD, at a recent press conference at the Woodford Folk Festival in Quennsland, Australia where she decided to express her opinions on the political landscape.

“It’s been a really scary time in America,” she related. “I don’t know how it’s felt over here [in Australia] for the past few months, but it’s a total shit show over there. Especially if you’re an artist, a woman, a minority, gay — anything but a rich white man — it’s really very scary.”

Many people share the same opinion as Palmer, who describes herself as an optimist, she continues to speak turning the conversation towards whether or not Donald Trump will have an impact on Art, mainly Pop music

“Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again,” Palmer said. “We’re all going to crawl down staircases into basements and speakeasies and make amazing satirically political art. If the political climate keeps getting uglier, the art will have to answer.”

This year, Palmer and Neil Gaiman released a cover a of Leonard Cohen’s song “Democracy”. This wasn’t the first time she covered a song by Cohen. Also this year, Palmer and Jeff Bischoff covered Cohen’s song “Everybody Knows”.